


It's Gotta Be the Season

by beetle



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: AU, M/M, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-12 14:28:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For zandra_x, who said, "if you like the icon, and really get time to write something, well, I wouldn't say no to S/X, just hanging out". Well, dude--I liked the icons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Gotta Be the Season

**Author's Note:**

> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: AU, SWP (snark-without-plot). Set during the S5 Christmas season in a Dawn-less and Anya-less ‘verse.

_It's just gotta be the season,_  Xander Harris thinks one balmy, California Yule, listening to his folks rage their drunken way throughout the house.   
  
At least they both seem to be avoiding the basement, this year.  
  
 _God, my life sucks so much, it blows. Then starts sucking again, defying the laws of physics and confounding science geeks everywhere._  
  
“Wouldn’t you agree, James Tiberius Kirk?” Xander asks the action figure laying on its side in the torture chair. _Spike’s chair_  (and Xander will never admit he still calls it, even though Spike moved out months ago).   
  
Captain Kirk gives Xander a dirty, unblinking--but somehow intrepid glare.  
  
“I like Picard better, anyway.  _Make it so, number one,_ ” Xander mutters listlessly; he's too rested to sleep and too lethargic to put on clothes and go in search of chocolate. The horrible pointlessness of this holiday season--of this _life_  is really starting to bum him out.   
  
There's a crash from upstairs . . . sounds like that gravy boat Uncle Rory gave the Harrises last Christmas. Xander sighs again, and misses the backyard. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the energy to shift himself even that far. What little energy he has, he's of the opinion he should conserve.  
  
He’s finally drifting into a torpor--or is it a languor?--when the door to the basement slams open and heavy footsteps stomp down the rickety stairs.  
  
“Told you, Dad, I’ll have the rent before new years, but right now, I’m $7.86 away from flat broke,” Xander mutters as loudly as he can, hoping the footsteps go right back upstairs and restart L’Grande Argument with Jessica, the Gravy-boat Slayer.   
  
“Not your dad, git. Don’t drink nearly enough to be him, do I?” A loud, rude, unwelcome mockney accent cuts through the haze of Xander’s torp-guor--it’s a real word . . . somewhere--and makes him turn his head and crack open his left eye. What he sees is a piece of pure madness: a bleach-blond vampire carrying an anorexic, midget of a Christmas tree in one hand and some raggedy tinsel in the other.  
  
 _Well, Bleacho’s finally gone insane . . . insaner._ Xander closes his eye with yet another a self-pitying sigh. “Get out, Spike.”  
  
“Oi!  _That’s_  a nice Happy Christmas! Rude much?”  
  
“Was I being rude? I apologize.  _Please_  get out, Spike. Thank you.”  
  
“And to think I came here bearing glad tidings of great joy!”  
  
“Actually, I think the great joy'll start once you leave. . . .”  
  
“You know, mate, even for a dank, sweaty little rathole, this place is cheerless . . . and I live in a crypt.”  
  
Spike-snark. Xander can deal with that in his sleep, and has.   
  
“Don’t you have puppies to harass or senior citizens to mug?”  
  
“Nah. Ran my Christmas errands early, me. I’m here on a mission of pity, as a favor to Red.”   
  
Now Xander’s sure one of them’s insane and it might not be Spike. He wastes some energy lifting that left eyelid again. “I’m sorry, did you just say you’re doing Wills a favor?”  
  
“That I am.” Spike’s looking around the basement with a critical eye, biting his lower lip.   
  
“ _My friend_ , Willow?”  
  
“My friend, too,” Spike says defensively, and sets the lopsided, pathetic excuse for a tree on the torture chair, unceremoniously knocking Captain Kirk to the floor.  
  
“Hey!” Xander’s other eye opens without his say-so and he very nearly sits up.  
  
“Oh, give over . . . Sisko was a much better captain. And at least his doll is  _pose-able_.” Spike gives Kirk a gentle kick that sends him into a pile of slowly moldering laundry.  
  
Xander wants to be offended by such callous dismissal of a potentially valuable (if it was still in the original packaging) collector’s item. But offense takes energy he doesn’t have, so he settles for a glare. “It’s not a  _doll_ , it’s an  _action figure_.”  
  
“Whatever gets you through the night, little lady.”  
  
Thinking up a suitable response to that also takes energy, so Xander resolves to ignore Spike. Because, like a small, obnoxious child, when Spike’s being ignored, Spike eventually gets bored and leaves. . . .  
  
Ten minutes later, the vampire’s incessant humming--not  _Anarchy in the UK_  or  _Blitzkrieg Bop_ , but  _Jingle Bell Rock_ \--has made ignoring him impossible. As does his fussing over that pathetic tree.  
  
“Okay, I give. Since when do you do favors for Willow?”  
  
Spike doesn’t pause from arranging and rearranging the sad bit of tinsel. “Since she mojo'd me up free cable for the crypt. Five hundred channels, clear as a bell.”  
  
“Oh.” That sounds like Wills, alright; nice to the point of giving vampires premium sports channels and free porn. “So what favor are you doing her and why are you doing it here?”  
  
A few moments of distracted swearing and fussing and Spike’s apparently got the tree arranged to his liking.   
  
 _Vampire feng shui_ , Xander supposes. But the tree--which is still only two feet high, still missing most of it's needles and  _still_  hung with scraggy, slightly greasy-looking tinsel--looks no better than it did ten minutes ago.   
  
He wisely keeps that opinion to himself.  
  
“Took it upon myself to look in on you--for her sake, of course. Haven’t been attending Scooby meetings since _Taco Bueno_  sacked your useless arse last week.”  
  
 _Vampiric notions of tact differ from our human notions of tact. . . ._    
  
“Spike, you’re all heart.”  
  
“I know . . . sodding chip. Anyways, the white hats are all at the Slayer’s mum’s for a holiday to-do, as you well know. They expect--and actually want--the unalloyed brilliance that is your company.”  
  
Xander rolls onto his stomach and buries his face in his pillow, mumbling.   
  
“Didn’t quite catch that, mate.” Spike’s voice is  _right_  next to Xander’s ear, damn vampire stealth! “Mind repeating en anglais?”  
  
Xander lifts his face out of the pillow just enough to speak clearly. “I said, tell them not to worry, I’ll crawl out of my despair when I’m good and ready, not one moment before. So I’ll pass on the nog and roast beast this year, thanks.”  
  
“Tell ‘em yourself, not your sodding lackey, am I?!” Now Spike sounds offended and thankfully on the far side of the basement.  
  
“Spike--you’re gonna crash the party, right?”  
  
“‘Course. If I didn’t, they’d think I don’t care anymore.”  
  
Xander turns his head to look at Spike. Who is  _still_  trying to nice up the midgetty Christmas tree. “So, it’s not like I’m asking you to go out of your way--”  
  
“You wanna disappoint your little white hat pals, you go right ahead, but you’ll have to do it without my help. Don’t fancy a Slayer-sized beat down or bein’ turned into a toad.”  
  
Xander face flops back into his grimy pillow. “I hate you.”  
  
A cool, intimate finger brushes the small of Xander’s back, resulting in naughty shivers that Xander tries his damnedest not to be effected by. “Tell yourself that if it makes you feel better, pet.”   
  
For which, Xander has no response. That should make him resent Spike at least a little, but it doesn’t.  
  
“You’re such a jerk,” he finally sighs, the lamest comeback imaginable, but still better than asking Spike to keep touching him till he feels better.  
  
“You’re being utterly ridiculous, you know,” Spike says in a surprisingly gentle--and still very close voice. Spike’s probably sitting on the bed. Which does not give Xander the naughty shivers at all. “Can’t wallow forever, mate.”   
  
Xander’s bored, numb mind must be desperate or something to angst about, because that almost-concern in Spike’s voice? Totally imaginary.  
  
“Can.” There’s really no point in being disagreeable, as that only encourages Spike. But Xander feels like being disagreeable, nonetheless. And the silence that follows is somehow disappointed.  
  
“Fine.” The bed groans as Spike stands up. “Wallow till you rot, then.”  
  
Two seconds later the basement door slams shut so hard, it bounces back open, creaking all the way.   
  
That disappointment-tinged-with-regret that Xander is feeling?  _Totally_  imaginary. So he puts it out of his mind in favor of more pressing issues.  
  
 _Maybe I should at least get up and wash the sheets . . . and pillowcase. They_ do _reek of unwashed zeppo and yeah, a little despair--_  
  
“God only knows why,” Spike murmurs in Xander’s ear, incidentally startling a crapload of bejeezus out of him. “But the other Scoobies miss your bright and upbeat presence.”   
  
“Gah!” Xander rolls to his feet, heart racing. Spike is gazing serenely up at him from the bed.   
  
“Damn you, and your vampire stealth!” Xander explodes, conservation of energy bedamned.  
  
Spike laughs, reclining on the bed--in Xander’s spot, no less--his filthy boots making the sheets even dirtier.  
  
“Now I’m gonna have to do laundry! Thanks a lot, Big Bad nuisance!”   
  
“Oh, please, I just did you a favor, mate.” Spike gives Xander the once over, smirking at the  _Animaniacs_  boxer shorts, before shrugging and patting himself down for cigarettes. “These sheets are one day away from getting get up, walking to the washing machine and washing themselves!”   
  
Xander blushes, but doesn’t concede the point. “Yeah. ‘Gee, let me wallow in my own misery and lament my wasted life--wait a minute! Can’t do that unless the sheets are clean  _and_  springtime fresh!” Plastering an insincere shit-eating grin across his face, he turns away in search of his bathrobe.  
  
“Do I sense sarcasm?”  
  
“It’s like you’re psychic, Spike, and it’s really wiggin’ me out.” Xander gives up on the robe and shuffles off toward the stairs, meaning to hide out in the bathroom. There’s a fairly good chance--not one hundred percent but a good sixty-five to seventy percent chance--that Spike won’t follow him in there.  
  
“Right, you get showered up and I’ll walk you to the party, make sure nothin’ nasty gets it’s teeth in ya.” There’s a leering smirk in Spike’s voice that sets Xander on edge.  
  
He takes a deep breath and strives for patience. “I’m not going to shower--”  
  
“Bloody shame, that; but I suppose if they’re  _really_  your mates, they’ll tolerate the stench--”  
  
 _Patience . . . please, give me patience. . . ._    
  
“--and I’m not going to the party. I’m just gonna hangout in the bathroom till you leave. Hint-hint.”  
  
“Why, pet! I’m hurt!”   
  
“I’m not your pet, Spike.”  
  
“And whose fault is that, then?”   
  
Xander turns to look at the undead leech lounged in his crappy, uncomfortable bed and still patting himself down for cancer-sticks.   
  
“Okay, what part of ‘we’ll never mention it again’ is giving you a brain-glitch?”  
  
“Don’t remember agreeing to  _that_ , love. . . .” Spike’s doing the elevator-eyes thing, his gaze lingering at about crotch level for  _way_  too long.  
  
“ADHD much?” Xander crosses his arms. “I said:  _just so we’re clear, Spike, this never happens again and we never, ever--even if we’re being tortured--talk about it._ ”  
  
“That so?” The search for cigarettes is put on hold or now, and Spike crosses his own arms behind his head and leans back. “And what did  _I_  say for my part of this alleged conversation?”   
  
“Well--you sorta leered and said  _whatever_. Then you started smoking.”  
  
“Sounds like a resounding agreement, to me.” More smirkage and crotch perusal. Xander somehow refrains from cupping his hands over his naughty-fun-zone, as that would only draw Spike’s attention even more. “‘Sides, I  _know_ you, Harris. Your mouth says no--and about a thousand other words, besides--but your eyes and your body say something else entirely.”  
  
“Spike--”  
  
“But I’m willin’ to let all that lie, for now,” Spike digs in one of the dusters inner pockets, immediately coming up with a battered loosie. “Just quit moping for a few hours and go make your mates happy.”   
  
“Not that their happiness matters to you, you just--”  
  
“--always pay back my debts,” they finish simultaneously.  
  
Xander almost smiles.  
  
“Wallow at the Joyce’s, pet. At least it’s a change of scenery,” Spike says in that gentle voice. He’s not leering or smirking, but smiling like he’s some kind of . . .  _person_.  
  
Xander shuffles to his bed and leans over Spike to snatch away the battered, unlit cigarette from between his lips. He shreds it into little pieces, earning himself a smirk. “The Basement of Doom is still a no-smoking zone.”  
  
Xander dusts shredded tobacco off his palms and onto the sheets. Hell, he has to wash them, anyway.   
  
“I don’t wanna go to a party if I’m just gonna bum everyone out. . . .” Xander admits, sitting on the edge of the bed, facing away from Spike.  
  
“They’re your mates. Just bein’ around ‘em’ll perk you right up. And by the way--bathing every so often’ll do wonders for your outlook, too,” Spike says with what Xander realizes is amazing self-restraint. And it's gotta be the season or something, because Xander . . .  _appreciates_  the thought.  
  
“Sir, if my aroma offends you, kindly piss off.” He’s chuckling as he says it, scrubbing his face with his hands. Boy, has the stubble gotten out of control. It a bit too  _Miami Vice_  for Xander’s taste.  
  
“Takes a lot more than b.o. to offend me. Besides--” cool, strong hands settle on Xander’s shoulders and cool lips brush his left ear. “I like you dirty, pet. I seem to recall saying something to that effect, once.”  
  
Xander shivers; remembers.  
  
 _Vividly_.  
  
“Spike--”  
  
The cool hands and cool lips disappear before Xander has to finish the sentence. Which is of the good . . . even though it really doesn’t  _feel_  like it’s of the good.  
  
“Not sayin’ I haven’t smelled worse,” Spike goes on casually, the bed creaking again as he stands up. A second later he strolls past Xander to futz with that stupid tree some more. “Smelled plenty worse than you. Nothin’ that was still  _alive_ , mind, but why split hairs?”  
  
“If I agree to go to the party, will you shut up?”   
  
Spike smiles over his shoulder, but remains enigmatically silent. Xander sighs. “Fine. Shower, shave, dress and party? Happy, now?”  
  
“Walkin’ on bloody sunshine.”  
  
“Well, I’m glad.” Xander heads for the stairs again. Just before he pulls the door to the basement closed, Spike’s voice drifts up to him.  
  
“Give a shout if you need someone to scrub your back, pet.”  
  
Xander opens his mouth to say, yet again, that he is  _not_  and will  _never_  be Spike's pet.  
  
But he smiles instead, for the first time in a week.   
  
Yeah . . . it's  _gotta_  be the season.


End file.
